Of course, ATI has yet to announce its Radeon Xpress chipsets formally, but Orton expressed the company's happiness with the interest its customers have shown in the products.

"We're quite encouraged in the early stages," said Orton, professing himself and the company to be "very excited" with the chipsets' "initial customer reception".

So if ATI is shipping already, how come there hasn't been a formal launch? "We want to be very cautious on this one because we want to show it in the results this time," Orton explained.

In other words, ATI doesn't want to announce the product until it's got volume shipment going - an approach seemingly in market contrast to the Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition launch, which has still to appear on the market in significant numbers